A Green Circular City is a sustainable urban ecosystem in which material loops are closed, and the value of resources is efficiently maximized by applying the circular approach – Redesign, Reuse, Repair, Remanufacture, Recycle, and Recover – which will lead environmental benefits, economic prosperity, and a thrive the society.

Green Circular Cities Coalition

ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability plans to initiate the Green Circular Cities Coalition, presenting an opportunity for cities across the world to become global leaders in urban circular economy transition. The Coalition will provide a platform to connect cities, experts, businesses, and other relevant stakeholders to foster urban circular economy transition through knowledge and experience exchange, mutual learning and technical support.

Cities could also further collaborate through participation in the thematic working groups joined by Knowledge Partners and Solution Providers, and receive support and guidance on implementing existing action plans and creating new ones for their urban circular transitions. Results of each working group's efforts would be consolidated and shared with the Coalition.

Proposed Thematic Focuses

Mapping the urban metabolism with urban spatial planning to identify cities’ potentials and opportunities and to reflect on local policies and decisions.

Yamaguichi Prefecture, Japan

The Japanese Prefecture Yamaguchi initiated an action plan, together with local food shops, poultry feed industry, consumers, and egg farmers to set up an economic efficient food waste collection and reuse system with the distance between businesses taken into consideration.

Food waste would be collected from local shops and shipped to poultry feed manufactures following the planned route. The remanufactured food waste would then be sent to egg farmers and used to feed chickens. Eggs will be shipped back to food shops.

Mainstreaming the circular approach in the process of public procurement to close materal loops with the support of ICLEI's intensive experience in Green Public Procurement

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Katrinedals School in Copenhagen reused bricks from hospitals in the city for its outer wall. The tender aligned with the city’s commitment of improving the environment through public procurement. 70tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions were reduced through the project.

Facilitating local governments to enhance the collaboration between individual companies on resources and by-products exchange with the consideration of both physically and virtually geographical proximity.

Beijing, China

The Beijing Chaoyang Circular economy industrial part is a business cluster aiming for the reuse and remanufacture of unwanted resources. The reuse of waste heat helps save millions annually, and the energy generated from combustion and transmitted to grid also brought about millions of monetary benefit.

Identifying municipal waste stream, minimizing the generation of waste, recovering waste into resources, and maximizing
the demand of secondary materials within cities.

Genoa, Italy

The Italian city Genoa government, and the municipality-owned waste management company have been working with local communities and stakeholders since 2014, to design and implement a new municipal waste collection plan. In addition, the City also engages stakeholders through municipal initiatives and support citizens on separating waste and repairing household appliances.

Mainstraming the circular approach and life cycle assessment in local governments’ building code regulation,and synergizing with ICLEI’s expertise in Building Efficiency Accelerator and GreenClimate Cities to retain the value of building materials as much as possible in the urban system.

Brummen, the Netherlands

Dutch city Brummen constructed its new town hall on a historic structure, with 90% of its materials either reusable or can be dismantled properly. The building received the country's first “materials passport”, which identifies the destinations of recycled metarials.

Keywords: performance contract, redesign, stakeholder engagement

Implementing systematic process to link and to close the loops between food-water-energy, and applying nature-based solutions to regenerate Green Circular Cities with nature features.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

An on-going project in Buiksloterham, a northern district of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is designated to build a neighbourhood wastewater bio-refinery that converts organic waste into biogas and nutrients for plant fertilization. As opposed to traditional energy-consuming wastewater treatment systems, the bio-refinery connects systems of food and water, and produces energy.